


Here and Now

by LemonflavoredBananas



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Everyone Is Alive, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Dad, Medical Inaccuracies, Nobody is Dead, One Shot Collection, Peter Parker Has a Family, Poisoning, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Scared Peter Parker, Sickfic, Tags for chapter 2, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, some AU, to the rescue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21560680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonflavoredBananas/pseuds/LemonflavoredBananas
Summary: A collection of unrelated one shots! Some of them will be AU.Chapter 2:Tony is just trying to develop his relationship with his mentee, and a training weekend at the compound goes a bit awry when Peter gets sick. And then gets really sick.Prompt byitsreallylaterightnow"Peter was poisoned while out with Tony, and they only have so long before Peter is going to die. Tony has to find a cure while taking care of Peter bc they're the only ones at the tower. Or, Bruce is also there, so Tony has to take care of Peter as he slowly gets worse."
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 65





	1. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing.
> 
> There is nothing to see, or feel. No temperature. No sounds. He doesn’t have a body, can’t open his eyes, can’t ask what happened. Can’t ask if anyone else is around. There is nothing around. For the first time in his memory, he is experiencing nothing.  
>  He’s dead. He’s absolutely dead. What other explanation is there?
> 
> He imagines waving his arms, looking down, moving, anything, but nothing happens.
> 
> There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing to see, or feel. No temperature. No sounds. He doesn’t have a body, can’t open his eyes, can’t ask what happened. Can’t ask if anyone else is around. There is nothing around. For the first time in his memory, he is experiencing nothing.

He’s dead. He’s absolutely dead. What other explanation is there? He was fighting, that’s the last thing he can remember. Some weird guy who could fly all by himself (that he could tell). He remembers thinking that he was going to give the fight his best, and ask Mr. Stark if he could get in touch with Doctor Strange. The guy seemed to be his area.

Peter isn’t religious. He can count the number of times he’s been to church on one hand, and he doesn’t believe in spiritual things. He believes in science, believes there is no afterlife, that the end of living meant the end of consciousness. 

But there is no other explanation to the absolute nothingness that he is experiencing. He imagines waving his arms, looking down, moving, anything, but nothing happens.

There is nothing.

…

The cabin dining room is warm and full of laughter and the smell of food. Rhodey and Morgan are having an intense discussion, the kind that toddlers generally have that are full of words that make sense but are strung together in creative ways that do not. Her parents laugh next to her, reminding her to take bites of her dinner in between sentences.

“Boss, Spider-Man is in need of assistance.”

FRIDAY’s voice brings the laughing conversation to an abrupt halt. Tony opens his phone—put away to respect the dinner table rules—to the Spider Suit diagnostics screen and demands his AI tell him what’s wrong.

“The Spider-Suit AI, KAREN, has uploaded the relevant data to your phone. He was apprehending a man causing trouble in Forest Hills and an explosion knocked him down. He appears conscious and heavily disorientated but is not responding to questions and has not gotten back up.”

“Shit,” he swears under his breath, belatedly kicking himself for doing so in front of Morgan, but leaves the table without saying anything to his family.

He watches the footage of the fight and the explosion while he lets a leftover suit envelop him. He doesn’t learn much. The person is masked and unidentified, and was robbing a bank before Peter swings in to stop him. The man didn’t have a gun, but is able to throw around light filled blasts like they’re nothing. They’re mild however, and don’t seem to hurt anyone beyond keeping them on the ground and away from him. He is somehow able to avoid being roped up by Peter, and runs out of the bank shortly after their fight happens, but doesn’t get very far down the street before he is finally caught by a web.

Then comes the explosion. Big enough to fill Peter’s recording devices with light and sound and nothing else.

Tony flies out of the garage, arcing towards Queens, following the line FRIDAY puts on his HUD, his heart racing. Why did it always have to end in explosions? He’s had more than his fair share.

“Give me a different camera angle, one that had eyes on the guy when the explosion happened,” he says, not getting a clear enough view from Peter’s mask, which had turned away for a second to change web combinations. He tries to forget the bright, tumbling first-person view of Peter being sent flying by the burst.

Another window replaces the first, footage from a street cam, and he watches the man carefully. He’s caught fast on the leg by a web, sending him to the ground. He recovers quickly, flips himself over, and zigzags his hands in a large motion before throwing them apart. Then there is light, and dust, and he gets an even better shot of Peter and several other people being thrown into cars, into the road, into buildings.

The hand motions. Either the dude blew himself up, or he is a man in Doctor Strange’s league.

10 minutes of jet-level-speeds later, he’s coming to an abrupt stop over the scene. The damage is mostly contained, and there doesn’t seem to be that much besides a lot of blown glass. The worst of it will be the casualties.

There’s a lot of movement, but it’s civilians moving towards a couple dozen fallen victims instead of away from an enemy.

“FRIDAY? Grenade Launcher still here?”

“No, I’m seeing reports that he flew east shortly after the explosion and has not been seen since.”

With that worry off his mind for now, he hovers, eyes roving over the fallen bodies, but he doesn’t need to search for long before FRIDAY highlights a particularly dense crowd circling red and blue. With a swear, he dives towards it, landing on the edge of the crowd and stomping his way through, parting the onlookers and causing them to fall silent at the sight of him.

He breathes a miniscule sigh of relief when he sees that Peter’s mask is still covering his identity. He’d built it to be difficult to remove by anyone but trusted individuals, but things happen in their unpredictable line of work. Several of the people in the crowd go back to talking on their cell phone, reporting what they’ve seen to 911.

But a few relieved worries do not calm him. Peter is sprawled on the ground as though he’d gone full ragdoll when he was thrown back. FRIDAY’s scan reports only minor injuries, and her correspondence with Peter’s AI says that he had been moving only moments before and that his eyes are open, but he isn’t responding to her.

“Spider-Man? Wake up Underoos,” he calls out, kneeling next to the teen and holds a bare hand against the iron chest, feeling it move with breaths. “C’mon Spidey, time to get up,” he calls out again, watching for any movement and is disappointed.

His mind is scrambling, planning for the next move, but the sounds from around him filter in again. Distant sirens (which isn’t unusual at all for New York City); conversations, mostly on cell phones. The crowd that surrounded Peter at first has dispersed mostly, with just a few stragglers who watch him and the fallen hero intensely—holding it even when he makes eye contact. They’re scared, they’re excited, they expect him to be the voice of reason and comfort.

“Who was around when this party started?” Tony asks loudly to the gatherers, drawing the attention of the ones that had moved back to give the heroes room. Most of them step forward, speaking over each other to explain what they saw.

“Hey, hey hey hey—you, what happened” He asks, pointing to a woman, silencing the others.

“He, he flew off. Just flew off, that way,” she says, pointing to the East, down Ascan Avenue.

“Okay, yeah, what happened after the explosion?”

“I don’t know, he—”

“No one touched him, we just called to him, tried to see if he was alright. Never answered,” another man cuts in. A few other people echo his words.

“He never moved?”

“A little, but he didn’t get up.”

“Okay, thanks. If any of you talk to the police, let them know that I’m sending my people to handle this,” Tony says the crowd, watching them nod and look determined. He takes a knee next to Peter, gathering his limbs and lifting his deadweight as gently as he can, and takes to the sky, shooting towards Headquarters.

He calls Rhodey on his way, flying slower and lower to keep wind chill down and his precious cargo safe.

“Tony, what’s up man? Is the kid okay?”

“Don’t know yet,” he responds, sounding a lot more put together than he feels. “He hasn’t woken up. I’m on my way to the compound. Just left a whole bunch of downed civilians behind, though. I need you to get back there and do your thing.”

“Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll meet back up with you in a couple hours.”

Tony ends the call without replying, just wanting to get his kid out of the suit and into the hands of a doctor. He didn’t intend to be callous towards the other people that had been caught in the blast, that could be severely injured or dead. He’s just lived long enough to know where his priorities fell.

The New Avenger’s headquarters was still upstate, just in a different place. They’d chosen the location, wanting privacy and space, and he’d gladly paid for it. Being retired didn’t put him completely out of the game. He’d been happy to provide a space that they could call home, could call safe. A space where Peter could max out his abilities in training and be taken care of in emergencies. Like this one.

It's maybe an hour’s drive from where he’d grabbed Peter, but his suit isn’t restricted by traffic laws or boundaries or obstacles, so he’s there in just 13 minutes. FRIDAY must have called ahead, because there is a medical team outside waiting with a gurney, all of them looking up when he’s close enough to be heard.

He lands, and the doctors and nurses don’t move, standing around him. He lays Peter down on the gurney, not even having the chance to fix his position to be more comfortable before the medical team is bursting into action, running around him and pushing the bed inside, all talking and checking and running.

His suit folds away from him, and he falls behind them slightly, but manages to keep up. He hangs back once they’ve stopped in the triage room of the medical wing, but he’s close enough to see and hear everything.

“Mr. Stark? Can you remove Spider-Man’s suit? We can’t cut it off,” A young woman in scrubs asks him hurriedly, letting him by so he can gently tap the symbol on the suit and let the nanotech fade away, leaving Peter bare to the medical staff in an undershirt and boxers.

He steps back again, all but pushed away so they can attach wires and monitors and an IV. They check his pupils, read out blood pressure and O2 levels. They’re worried and confused about everything they see.

But he’s not necessarily listening to them. He’s watching Peter, whose eyes are open and shifting around, unfocused and clearly not actually seeing anything. The boy is not confused, or scared, or anything. His face is limp and emotionless, except for his wandering brown eyes.

He zones out watching Peter’s face in horrified confusion, but he’s brought back to reality when the gurney is unlocked with a loud, steel clang.

“We’re going to take him to get some tests done, now, Mr. Stark. Will you be staying here?” the nurse from earlier asks him. He nods a few more times than is necessary.

“Yes, why—why are his eyes open like that?” he asks hurriedly, before she has the chance to run off.

“We don’t know, sir, but we will find out.” With that, she hurries away to join her colleges. The medical ward is typically fairly empty, serving employees of the Avengers and the neighboring areas in times of need. And of course, the Avengers themselves. There was nobody being treated today except for Peter, thankfully. He’d get the very best care.

From the looks of it, he’s going to need it.

…

News coverage of the event downtown starts shortly after Spider-Man is flown away from the scene by Iron Man. A few eyewitnesses report seeing Spider-Man fight an enemy before an explosion went off, injuring 28 people and ending the fight. They’re shaken, wide-eyed, gesturing. They express their hope that those injured are healed.

May Parker watches the news every time her nephew goes out to fight. In this way, she doesn’t receive news that Peter is okay or not immediately, but it comes a lot faster than the Avengers calling to tell her.

She’s on her phone calling Tony as soon as the first witness mentions Peter.

“May,” Tony answers.

“Hi, Tony. Is Peter with you? I heard on the news that he was.”

“Yes. He’s at the headquarters getting tests done.” He’s rushing through to explain, not filling their conversation with anything but pressing facts. It’s what he would want, in her situation.

“Tests?” She presses the phone harder into her ear, holding it with both hands to make sure she could hear perfectly.

“He wasn’t injured much in the explosion; we can’t tell what’s wrong with him. He wasn’t responding to anything but was awake. Somehow. His eyes were open. That’s all I know.”

“Oh…” May said, quietly, confused.

“He has the very best people looking after him. Don’t worry.”

“You know I’m going to worry anyways.”

“Yeah.” He did.

The same nurse from before stops in front of Tony, barely waiting for him to be quiet before talking.

“We’re getting him settled into a private room right now. The tests went well and are being reviewed. Follow me,” she said, getting right to the point.

“I’ll send happy to come pick you up,” Tony says without prompting, feet carrying him behind the nurse.

“Thanks,” May say. “I’ll see you then.”

Tony clicks off the call, following the woman back to a room. In contrast to the gaggle of people that had hidden Peter from view and whisked him away, only one doctor remains now, fiddling with a machine and two other nurses, still in the middle of settling Peter, putting IV’s in and hooking him up to machines.

“What the hell? Why is that there?” Tony says immediately, his cocktail of emotions boiling into rage at the sight of a ventilator obscuring Peter’s face.

“We put him on a ventilator as a precaution. His breathing was becoming irregular. He will have a saline drip for hydration and we’ve put him on a mild pain med to avoid sedation. His eyelids are taped shut because they open randomly and he doesn’t blink regularly. He’s being attached to a brainwave monitor, because we’re fairly certain at this point that the problem is in his brain.”

Tony’s eyed land on each facet as she explains, growing more and more weary by the second, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of equipment hooked up to the boy. Is Peter really that bad off? It seems impossible, that this hearty kid, who’d bounced off concrete and the side of buildings too many times to count and still stood right back up as if it hadn’t happened, could be bedridden and hooked up to life support. Tony feels stupid, in this moment. Unable to comprehend why any of this is happening.

“He has been moving around, often. Whoever is staying with him should make sure he doesn’t move too roughly or restrict the wires,” she continues, saying it a little quieter. His eyebrows furrow, and he looks just a little harder at Peter, who is still.

“He’s moving? His eyes are open and he’s moving? Does that normally happen?”

“It’s not uncommon, with comas.” He doesn’t flinch, but his heart beats just a little harder than it already was. “Doctor Montgomery will speak with you more about Peter’s situation.” It sounds like a cop-out, like she doesn’t want to tell him everything.

The team works efficiently but still takes a good fifteen minutes to complete the set-up. The doctor helps them, and when they deem it functional, he comes up to Tony.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stark,” he greets pleasantly, not offended when he doesn’t get a reply. “I’ll get to the point. He’s showing signs that he is fully conscious, but is not reacting to any sort of stimuli. He is not in a coma, and he is not paralyzed. We aren’t sure yet what exactly is wrong, but our testing should explain it, and we will do more focused testing later this evening. Any questions or concerns?”

“No. Thank you,” Tony says to the man, wanting to be alone. The man takes the hint, and soon everyone has left the room, and Tony allows himself to pull the room’s recliner up to the side of the bed with less machinery, beginning his vigil.

He stands hurriedly only seconds later when Peter’s arm shifts, the taped and needled hand falling off the edge. It’s uncoordinated and awkward, and scares the shit out of Tony, who is struggling to remember that Peter isn’t a vegetable on life-support.

He gently grabs the wayward arm and sets it back at the teen’s side, fixing the saline tube. He hovers for a minute, waiting for the kid to move again, but he doesn’t.

He sits back down with a huff, leaning on his knees and scrolling through the contacts on his phone. It was true that he only hires the best, but he has a feeling that the best isn’t going to be good enough, this time. Besides, this situation isn’t in the Avengers’ contract.

“Stark.”

“Strange. I need a favor.”

…

Doctor Strange arrives an hour after May. She’s settled in and has been scrolling along on her tablet in the chair Tony vacated upon her arrival, choosing instead to sit by the window.

The man arrives via portal, which startles a shout out of May, and Tony chooses to watch her gather herself after the fright rather than greet him. She presses her hand against her heart, then switches her tablet off, setting it down in the seat to stand and shake the newcomer’s hand.

“You’re Doctor Strange?” she asks him.

“Yes, I am.”

“May Parker, I’m Peter’s aunt,” she steps back to stand next to the chair, giving him room but deciding not to sit yet.

“It’s nice to meet you. Stark,” Strange says, glancing around the room and paying close attention to the readout on the brainwave monitor.

“You’ll have to talk to them about the results of the MRI and CAT scan and all that,” Tony says, waving a hand towards the door. “They haven’t told us anything yet. He’s nonresponsive, but they said he was awake and conscious. Have at it, Harry.”

Strange sweeps out of the room, magic living cape flapping around behind him.

“You’re sure he’s going to be able to figure this out? He doesn’t… seem like much of a doctor,” May says, sitting back down.

“He was a neurosurgeon. A very good one. Besides, he knows Peter and anyone who’s met the kid will be willing to help him.” May smiles at him but doesn’t comment. “And… The Villian of the Day… he’s in Strange’s league. The way he was fighting was magical, no question. He probably abbra kedabbra’d Pete,” Tony adds, throwing a dismissive hand towards their ward, falling quiet and letting the soft din of medical machinery take hold once more.

A little while later, long enough for Peter to have another few goes at getting out of bed while Tony and May put his limbs back where they belong, Strange returns.

“This might be a longshot but my immediate assumption is that his senses are somehow not functioning.”

“Th—What?” May says, scrunching her face at him.

“He is awake, he’s conscious, but he is unresponsive. He doesn’t seem to hear or see or feel anything yet his brainwaves indicate that he is feeling emotions and he is not in any sort of coma. I’ve never seen a case of this before, but it is not impossible,” Strange explains, moving back over to Peter and again looking at the readouts on the monitors.

“So, we can fix him?” Tony says expectantly.

“I will need to do some tests, but yes probably.”

“Gonna need something better than probably, Strange.”

“A good doctor is not in the habit of making promises, Stark,” Strange says mildly. “But I have confidence that this will be sorted shortly.”

“Good, that’s—” Tony blows out a big breath. “That’s good.”

“How shortly is shortly?” May asks, peering at Strange behind her glasses.

“I’m not sure. I will need to look at Peter, possibly do some research. A week at the most, and that’s a large overestimation.”

May nods. “Okay. Okay. As long as it’s fixed, as long as he’s fine, I can handle a week.”

Tony wasn’t sure he could. But he would. He always would.

…

Time is different, in this world. He thinks he can feel the passage of time, but it is so warped and scattered that he can’t exactly tell how much of it is passing.

It feels like it’s been days. And who knows? Maybe that’s what years feel like here. Maybe it’s only been a few minutes.

At this point, he’s decided that he is in hell, or whatever version of hell that comes with this afterlife. He’s constantly plagued with awful thoughts; remembering in vivid detail the murder of his uncle, the entire battle with Thanos. All the ugly thought’s he’d ever had about himself, his life, come rushing back to him. He imagines what it was like to be nonexistent for five years, and thinks this is probably what it was like.

He knows that he’s in hell, because Thanos is here, too.

He’s a distance away, quietly watching Peter with the all-knowing, emotionless expression he wore when he wasn’t smiling or frowning. He hasn’t said much, yet, and Peter doesn’t feel like talking to him.

He tries desperately to escape the nasty thoughts plaguing him. He tries to think about his family, his friends, think about the people that love him, but it keeps ending with him remembering that he will never feel their love again, will never share a meal or go on their senior trip or play with Morgan or build something with Mr. Stark. He’s haunted by their memory and the horribly desperate need to cry, curl up, do _anything_ to make the pain go away. He’ll try to think happy thoughts again, overcome with emotion and unable to separate himself from it, and will begin the cycle again.

He wishes he could do something. He’s a doer, a fixer, he doesn’t like to sit around and wait for things to happen. He wishes someone else were here, anyone but the fucking monster a few feet away, haunting him. He wishes he could move, could cry, could speak. He desperately wishes to know why he’s here. He had done something wrong, somewhere.

But the hell is telling him what he did wrong, and it looks like he’ll spend the rest of eternity remembering every mistake he ever made.

…

Tony sticks around that evening, unhappy that he is missing a dinner with his wife and daughter, but completely unwilling to leave Peter’s side yet. So, he has take-out with May, delivered suspiciously by Happy, who had lingered—and Tony’s not sure whether it was because of May or the kid, or both. They watch the news while they silently eat their food, and both of them pretend they don’t see the other looking at Peter, or his monitors. It’s awkward, and much, much too solemn for a room that contains Peter Parker. Too quiet. Too still.

They are almost finished eating when Tony notices that the rows of waves on the brainwave scanner have changed again. Dr. Montgomery had shown them the difference between Peter’s brain activity when he was asleep and when he was awake, because May had asked why they were different, earlier, when Peter had managed to take a short nap.

“He’s asleep again,” Tony says quietly, watching the continuous readout.

“Mm, good. Didn’t sleep for very long earlier,” she replies through a mouthful, still watching the TV

Tony goes back to eating, and watches each news segment go by without really listening.

“He sleeps more now,” May mentions, out of the blue. “He has a lot more energy, too. Than he used to, I mean. Before Spider-Man.”

Tony considers the new information. He doesn’t know much about Peter before the mutation had changed his life. Only what he could find in records. He’d been smart then, too, and had worn glasses. It had surprised Tony to see that the baby-faced 14-year-old could have looked any younger or dorkier, but he’d managed it.

He hears Peter shift, so attuned to it by now. Peter had been moving around constantly, but this is the first time he’d made any noise. Tony’s never heard the kid make a noise like it, so the deep whine takes him completely by surprise.

May is up as soon as Peter starts moving, grabbing wayward limbs, protecting wire’s and tubes. Peter’s head falls from side to side, not calming even when May sets it back straight. Peter keeps trying to make noise behind the tube in his throat, and it’s an unsettling noise.

Tony’s heart picks up speed, and he stands up to lean over the boy. “Pete? You trying to Ouija board us, buddy?” May makes a face at him, and he regrets his mention of death, but doesn’t respond. The woman smooths her hand through Peter’s hair, the other hand trying to still him.

“He’s—he’s having a dream, a nightmare or something,” May says. “I think. I don’t know. What do we do?” She looks at Tony, and he’s reminded, suddenly, of what it felt like to hold his baby daughter for the first time. Terrifying, overwhelming. The good feelings aren’t present now, but the encompassing feeling of having too much on his plate that he’s not able to fix.

“Maybe we can wake him up,” Tony suggests. But it’s not a good suggestion, he knows it. The doctors had done test after test and had concluded that his brain isn’t receiving any signals whatsoever, that he couldn’t hear them calling to him, or feel them shaking him.

But they try. May shakes him gently, and they both take turns trying to coach him out of the dream.

“C’mon Pete, sweetie, wake up.”

“It’s okay Bud, it’s just a nightmare.”

“Honey, it’s time for school, wake up for me or you’ll be late.” May rubs her nephew’s arm, frowning at them. “He’s cold,” she mutters, and leaves the room. Tony looks at him more closely, and can see goose bumps raising the fine hair on his arms. He covers the arm he’s near with both hands, trying to impart his own heat.

“Don’t feel all that cold,” he mentions, but knows that Peter has had difficulty with temperature regulation, lately. Tony had forced him to get checked out, in case it was a medical issue, but it seemed to come from his mutation.

May returns with an extra blanket and gets to work spreading it out, Tony helping with the other side. It’s warm, and thick, much nicer than standard hospital blankets. And, though it couldn’t really be possible, since everything indicated that Peter couldn’t feel cold or warm, it might have been the reason he was kicking up such a fuss, because he’s quiet, now. He’s still asleep, according to his readouts.

The news has turned into a sitcom, and whatever dinner was left in its box is cold now. The two adults return to their seats, stewing in emotions.

“It’s… just crazy to me,” says May, shaking her head at the far wall, looking for something that isn’t there. “That this—aliens and gods and…mutants, that any of this could—could even exist, let alone that my family would be wrapped up so close to it. I wish, a lot, that he wasn’t Spider-Man. That the saving the world could have kept itself in your hands, or the Avenger’s hands. That Peter could have just built his trash creations and made a lot of money and would have just watched this stuff on the news.”

“I—” should he really say it? He tries not to think it. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t met him,” he lays the words out in front of him, just pushing them away from where they’d been hidden in his chest. “Doesn’t seem like an even trade, between him and me, anymore.”

“He loves you.” May says that with as much conviction as she’d had when she told him that he would be taking care of her boy, the or else implied heavily. “His life is what it is, despite what I wish it could be, or what anyone wishes it could be. He is Spider-Man, and whatever trouble he gets into, you’re going to pull him right out of it. He couldn’t do this without you. I couldn’t do this without you.”

He doesn’t know how to respond. He’s never taken sincere compliments that well. But he doesn’t want to argue, doesn’t want to spill any more of his feelings.

“Whether you think so or not,” May adds, smirking at him. She quiet for a while, long enough for Tony to think the conversation was over.

“He might have ended up here without Spider-Man, you know. He would have been blipped. What would have happened if he didn’t have you?” She asks suddenly, and Tony wasn’t raised with the kind of manners that forced him to respond to every question someone asked him. He didn’t know, anyways.

Would he have had the motivation to do what he did? He tried to reverse what Thanos had done for years, and eventually he only thing that seemed possible anymore was moving on, and giving up. But he’d still risked everything to fix the world and bring everyone (Peter) back. Maybe he wouldn’t have made that same choice if he didn’t have Peter in his life.

He lies awake in his own bed that night, with his wife, across the hall from their daughter and the guest room and Peter sleeps in occasionally. He’s been happy; his traumas haven’t reared their stinking head in a while, enough to keep him awake. But tonight is full of unknowns, and guilt, and a lot more hope than he normally has in these kinds of situations. He’s not used to having a good life, and it’s bolstering him, raising him up, letting him see the sunshine on the other side. He doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks that things will be okay soon.

…

He’s almost sure he had been asleep. Almost. Everything was the same, really, but he could see. And it wasn’t quite the same as Thanos, or his vivid memories. They were chaotic and scrambled and made even less sense than they usually did, but they seemed like dreams. And he could see, and hear voices. May, his friends, the woman down the hall from his apartment. Tony.

His dreams offered respite from his wayward thoughts, but they weren’t always happier. Most were confusing conglomerations of words and actions, coupled with unsettling emotions, and the faint itch of his spider-sense.

Now, there’s nothing. He could almost swear he had just been dreaming. He has no reference for time, so he doesn’t know how long it’s been, only that things had changed and now there are no voices, and he can’t walk or swing like he could in the dream. Or whatever afterlife equivalent it was.

Thanos drifts in an out, like a cloud filtering sunlight. His memories return to him, obscuring his view of the nothing. He’s swept up, away, in the dim light of his apartment, where everything is vague and blurred when he’s not looking directly at it. He can’t remember the specific voices of the people he loves. He realizes in horror that he can’t remember their faces exactly either. Everyone looks wrong.

When did he last see them? When did he exist? Did he ever exist? Maybe this is the end, when the life simulation is turned off and anyone that ever existed is wiped out, as if it all had never happened. Maybe he’d never been alive, and everything was always just in his head; coping mechanisms for the nothingness. Maybe he’d created his family and friends. Made them up.

He wants them here with him. But if he’s dead, then they’d have to be dead too. And none of them would go to hell, he was sure. That’s why Uncle Ben isn’t around. He wishes things could be different.

Then they are.

Sound is loud in his ears. Sharp beeps surround him. He can’t breathe, and his hands move and he feels heavy and hot and scared. His spider-sense is stabbing him, everywhere, and he’s in mortal, awful danger but he can’t breathe and he can’t do _anything_.

He could see red, and snippets of light, and maybe even Thanos haunting the edges of the green and blue flashes, but then his _eyes_ are open and pain is ricocheting down his skull. Everything is heat and pressure and pain and he can’t breathe.

“Peter, PETER!” he hears someone shout. Out of the chaos of sensation bombarding him, he feels strong, warm hands grip both of his shoulders and everything narrows to those two points of contact. They’re bright in his mind, and he can feel each individual finger press into his skin. He can feel them shake him, and the aftershocks ripple through him, bringing awareness back to his own body. “It’s me, it’s Tony, you’re alright.” The voice, a deep voice, says, quieter.

He stops moving—he didn’t know he had been moving at all—and squints against the blinding light around him. Tony’s face hovers in his vision, greyed and bearded and wrinkled, like he always is. The man smiles and jabbers encouragement, “That’s it, that’s it, you got it.”

He’s in heaven, now. He must be. It’s bright and he exists and Tony is here. But he still can’t breathe, and now he can tell that there’s _something_ in his mouth, down his throat. He gags on it

“You’re alright, you’re alright, I’m right here,” Tony says, in a comforting, soft voice, accompanying the words with a squeeze to his shoulders. “It’s just a tube, you can breathe, you’re alright.”

“Peter, I need you to relax,” another voice commands, loudly and clearly. “I can take the tube out, but I need you to relax first.”

It’s easier, this time, to settle himself and relax into the bed. He stops moving entirely, and tries to pull short, shallow breathes in through his nose. He opens his eyes again to look at the new voice. A doctor.

“Very good,” the doctor encourages. He inclines Peter up a little higher, so he isn’t flat anymore. “I’m going to pull the tube out, now. When I tell you, I need you to start coughing as hard as you can. It will be uncomfortable but it will be over quickly,”

Tony’s hand latches onto his, and he squeezes it, and he’s able to have a moment to just _look_ at Tony. He’s so much better than the weird version from the nothing. The other man peels sticky tape off his face, and he can feel the tube in his throat shift and move, and it ruins his careful control. Tony rubs his thumb across Peter’s knuckles until he’s still again.

“Okay, Peter, on three,” the doctor says, and Peter squeezes Tony’s hand hard, watching in fear as he grabs the piece running out of his mouth. “One, two, three.”

The doctor starts to pull, getting a few inches out before Peter is gagging, then coughing the ugliest cough he’s ever coughed in his life. He bends forward instinctively, hands flying up to grab at the tube before remembering himself and leaving them hanging awkwardly in the air. But then it’s over, and his cough is clear and raw and sore.

“Okay, you’re okay,” Tony reassures, leaving his side for a moment before returning with an uncapped water bottle, which Peter gratefully accepts. A few swigs make a world of difference.

“I need to ask you a few questions, Peter, then you can sleep,” the doctor says. Sleeping sounds nice, if a little malicious. But he trusts Tony, and the man seems calm and happy, so he nods.

“What’s your full name?”

“Uh—” he clears his throat, but it really doesn’t help much. “Peter Benjamin Parker,” he manages to grind out.

“And what year is it?”

Peter furrows his eyebrows. “I—I guess 2019?”

“You guess?”

“Was last time I checked. Don’t know how long it’s been.”

The doctor nods. “It’s only been a few days.”

Really? It had felt like _years._

“I’ve heard you’re very smart, Peter, can you tell me what 156 minus 100 is?” The doctor asks, in a voice that sounds suspiciously like it belongs in the old pediatric office he went to as a kid.

“It’s—56,” he answers, hoping he didn’t somehow get that wrong.

The doctor looks pleased. “It sounds like you’re perfectly fine. Mr. Stark, would you like to step into the hallway and speak for a moment?”

Tony doesn’t look like he wants to, but does anyways, and Peter watches him go all the way until his eyes get stuck on the third person in his room: Doctor Strange.

They look at each other for a while, neither saying a word. He doesn’t feel the need to be bubbly and respectful to the man, or offer any sort of greeting. He’s tired and sore and confused about the turn his heaven is taking.

Tony returns quickly, saving both men from needing to say anything to each other. He returns to his seat on the bed, next to Peter, and he feels a lot better for that.

“Oh, I can lower the bed down again, let you sleep,” Tony offers.

“Maybe later,” Peter says, barely getting the words out. He clears his throat again.

“Are you dead?” he asks Tony. Tony’s face contorts.

“No. Why, Peter?” he asks, almost sounding offended. Or maybe anxious.

“Well, I mean—this is heaven, right?” he asks hesitantly. Maybe they’d explain, finally.

Tony shakes his head at him. “No, kid, I’m not dead, you’re not dead. You’re fine—you’re alive, you’re at the Avenger’s compound.”

It was Peter’s turn to look confused. Faint hope rose in his chest, but he ignored it. “I was just—no, just tell me where I am. I just wanna know where I am,” Peter pleads.

“Pete, you’re fine, you’re definitely not in heaven,” Tony reasons. “You’re completely fine, you just got the nasty end of a magic spell—”

“I was fighting,” Peter perks up at the memory. “I was fighting before.”

“Yes, exactly, you were fighting one of Strange’s buddies and he put you in a weird coma where you couldn’t hear or see or anything. Like your senses had been turned off,” the man explains.

Peter lets the information sink in. He believes Tony, without a doubt, but… his experience in the nothing-hell was hovering over his head, twisting the hope that maybe he really was alive and okay into ‘maybe you just don’t have the full story yet’.

But really, weirder things have happened. Coming back from the snap is still a daily struggle for most people, Peter included. Maybe this is just going to be another thing.

“Let me know if anything seems amiss, Stark,” Doctor Strange interrupts, receiving a nod and a thank you from Tony, and portaling out of the room. So cool. He wishes he had the energy to geek out about it, and less trauma associated with the man.

“I assume he’s going to fix the others. You weren’t the only one hit,” Tony says, relocating himself to a chair next to Peter’s bed. Peter flexes his hands, watching them where they sit in his lap, morbidly curious about the IV port taped down to the back of the right one. It doesn’t hurt.

“May will be really glad to see you,” Tony mentions, off-handedly. “She said to call if anything happened, and this is a pretty big anything, so—we could call now, or—I can call her later.”

“We can—I’ll call, I can talk to her, just—maybe in a bit.” He’s so tired, and he really doesn’t feel like talking through his rough throat anymore, despite the joy he gets from being able to do so. He takes another drink from the water bottle. _Fuji_ , because of course it is.

“FRIDAY,” Tony says to the room. “Play Season 2 Episode 7 of Brooklyn 99.”

Peter smiles, watching the TV switch on and start the episode. He shifts a little deeper into the bed, lying back. The normalcy is overwhelmingly comforting after the extended period of believing he’d never have it again. He almost wants to cry, and misses the first few minutes of the episode trying not to do that.

Tony stands suddenly, and Peter is engulfed in his arms, his warmth, his weight, his scent.

“I’m glad you’re okay, kid,” Peter hears rumble in Tony’s chest. He hugs back, reveling in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Hoped you liked it, leave a comment to let me know what you think! I'll keep adding more as ideas come along, I have a few right now so look out for me!
> 
> Thanks to [embarrassing_myself](https://archiveofourown.org/users/embarrassing_myself/pseuds/embarrassing_myself) and my boyfriend for looking this over for me :)


	2. Just Trying to Get By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is just trying to develop his relationship with his mentee, and a training weekend at the compound goes a bit awry when Peter gets sick. And then gets really sick.
> 
> Prompt by [itsreallylaterightnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsreallylaterightnow/pseuds/itsreallylaterightnow)
> 
> "Peter was poisoned while out with Tony, and they only have so long before Peter is going to die. Tony has to find a cure while taking care of Peter bc they're the only ones at the tower. Or, Bruce is also there, so Tony has to take care of Peter as he slowly gets worse."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loved doing this prompt for [itsreallylaterightnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsreallylaterightnow/pseuds/itsreallylaterightnow)!! Thanks so much for sharing!!

The waning evening hours do not lessen the crowds of people in New York. Peter’s neighborhood is a relatively quiet one, so there aren’t a lot of people out and about in his immediate vicinity, but there’s enough. And normally, he wouldn’t pay much attention to that fact, but he’s about to climb into a very expensive car with a license plate that says ‘Stark’ on it, and he’d rather keep the rumors of his status as a prostitute from forming.

In his effort to get out of sight as soon as possible, he accidentally climbs into the front seat, when he normally gets in the back. “Hey, Mr. Stark,” he greets the man, trying to cover his embarrassment.

“Hey, Kid.” The man is relaxed in the driver’s seat, left hand on the wheel, elbow resting on the window, seat back farther than Peter’s comfortable having it when he practices May’s car. “Sorry I’m late.” He doesn’t sound very sincere about that.

“Oh! That’s fine, Mr. Stark. I haven’t been waiting long.” It had been about 15 minutes, but it wasn’t really a big deal. He’d actually been a bit late himself, between finishing up patrol and trying to find something decent to wear.

Mr. Stark shifts the car to drive and pulls out to the street with a modicum of caution. “How was your last day of school?” he asks with no expression, but the tilt of a smile in his words.

“Good,” Peter says, holding himself back from saying too much. The billionaire just wants to make small talk, he definitely doesn’t care about Peter’s daily school life. It was nice of him to be taking Peter out, to celebrate the end of the school year and kickstart the summer with a training weekend at the compound. Peter’s going to make it as easy as possible for the man. “We just ate food all day and chilled.”

“Loved those days, perfect days to just stay home,” the man comments.

Peter laughs. “Yeah well, then I’d miss out on the free food. And everyone comes for the last day, unless they’re sick.”

“That’s because you go to a nerd school.”

Peter concedes that point. “Yeah, I guess.”

“How was web-slinging, then? Lasso any bad guys?”

“No, it was a quiet day today. Got a lot of good pictures, though.” The weather has been clear and warm all day, only a few puffy clouds to brighten the blue. The skyline had been beautiful. “I wish I could post them somewhere.”

“What, Spider-Man doesn’t have his own Facebook?”

“Um, no, Mr. Stark. And neither do I. I mean more like Instagram. It’s—you’re supposed to post pictures there. It’s a photography thing.” Despite the fact that he mostly uses it for memes, on the rare occasion that he gets on it.

“Did you just assume that I don’t know all the social medias?”

“Oh! No! I just, it—it just, like, I don’t know… Sorry, Mr. Stark,” he fumbles.

“I’m pulling your leg, Kid.” The man sends him an ironic smile.

Peter chuckles nervously. “Oh, right, sorry.”

Awkward silence follows. Or, at least, it’s awkward for Peter. He spends the rest of the car ride rethinking what he said and wishing none of it had happened at all. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to go out in the first place. It’s just… how could he have said no?

Mr. Stark pulls off the road, into a short, half-circle driveway that leads up to the elegant glass doors of the restaurant. He throws it in park, and climbs out of the car without turning it off. Peter is about to say something, but Mr. Stark hands some money to a man standing off to the side, and the man gets in the car instead. A valet. Fancy.

Peter follows Tony inside, and the warm atmosphere of rich people having a pleasant dining experience washes over him. It’s quiet, calm, and the music is just a step above jazzy elevator songs. The front desk is sleek and houses a woman in a simple black dress.

“Mr. Stark,” she greets. “Andrea will show you to your reservation.” Another woman, in a similar black dress, clicks her heels across the elegant tiled floor and gracefully shows them the table they will be sitting at for the next hour or two, and hands them menus.

“A server will be right with you, Sirs.”

Peter opens the menu, takes a look at the prices for a dinner salad, and hides his internal panic by looking around the restaurant more. He doesn’t see a single person under the age of 20, and _all_ of them are clearly on dates: dressed fancy and gazing lovingly and sharing bottles of alcohol. His internal panic deepens into something hysterical when he notices how much it looks like _him_ and _Mr. Stark_ are on a date. Maybe he won’t be avoiding rent boy rumors, after all.

“I’d recommend a steak. That’s what they’re known for. And they don’t skimp on the portions.”

Peter draws his attention back to Mr. Stark, who is doing something on his phone. Instead of answering, Peter bites the bullet and flips through the sparse menu until he sees a section labeled “Steaks”. Yeah. That’ll be $100. The five-dollar bill he’s got probably wouldn’t even cover the tip.

He flips back to the salads, which are still exorbitantly priced for some lettuce and grilled chicken, but he has an emergency debit card he can use to pay.

Their server brings them glasses of water (with no ice clinking around in them) and takes a drink order. Peter assumes they won’t have diet coke, and sticks with his water. Tony also sticks with his water, presumably because he’ll be driving.

“Are you ready to order, Kid?” Mr. Stark puts his phone away.

“Oh um—yeah,” Peter responds, jiggling his menu slightly.

“Tell me you’re not ordering a salad.”

“I’m… not ordering a salad.”

“Good, because I’m paying and there’s no way in hell a hungry teenage boy wants a salad over one of the best steaks in town.”

“No but…”

“Right?” Mr. Stark presses.

“R—right?”

“Right. So, you’ll be getting _whatever_ you want.”

Peter blinks at him for a moment, caught up in their standoff. “Thanks Mr. Stark.”

Tony scoffs. “I come here and order their steak almost every week, it’s really not a big deal.” Oh, to be rich. Peter wouldn’t even know what to do with the money.

Peter orders steak, and a side of vegetables because, contrary to what he’d just said about ordering _whatever_ he waned, he thinks Peter should have something a _little_ healthier than fries. And he was expecting it to be a good steak, but he didn’t understand quite what he was missing out on until he took his first bite. He’d forever be a changed man.

They don’t order dessert because they’re both stuffed and want to start the drive upstate ASAP. Music plays loudly (but not too loudly), and Peter relaxes into the night drive.

The compound is extremely well lit and can be seen practically from a mile away, despite being surrounded by forest. Tony drives up to the front door and leaves his car there like he owns the place, which, he does.

The building is emptying out for the weekend, so there aren’t a whole lot of people in the front lobby. They wave at the front desk receptionist and head to the private elevator in the back.

“I need to make a stop at the R&D department,” Tony says offhandedly. Peter agrees easily, of course he doesn’t care that Mr. Stark has business to attend to. He’s surprised the man got to spend a couple hours doing nothing with a teenager.

He always feels so official and professional getting on elevators with Mr. Stark. He’s not sure what it is about it, but riding in a ‘Staff only’ elevator with the superhero somehow highlights how wild his position in life.

Mr. Stark automatically stands in the front, providing space for the two men in the back, pressing the button for the R&D floor and getting his phone out. Peter stands next to him, watching the doors close and instinctually listening to the heartbeats of everyone in the elevator. Mr. Stark’s is calm, restful. Peter’s spent enough time listening to it to know what it’s supposed to sound like. He can’t distinguish which of the other heartbeats belong to who, but one of them is noticeably fast. But everyone’s heart beats a little different.

But Peter’s Spider-sense is buzzing, just barely, in the back of his mind. There’s something wrong. It’s a small something, not a huge threat. But it has the potential.

He looks up at Mr. Stark, who is typing on his phone, intensely focused. Peter wants to tell him, in case something is wrong with the elevator, but nothing really _seems_ all that wrong—not even a weird noise—and the man is busy. He weighs his options in his awkwardness. He doesn’t want to raise the alarm in front of the two men in the back, and he couldn’t even begin to explain what is wrong in the first place. So, he stands at alert, ready for any sudden movements and wishing he’d brought his spider-Man stuff with him.

The elevators in the compound are quick so it’s only a few seconds before the random employee is getting to his floor, and only a few more before the R&D department is visible beyond the elevator doors.

Tony immediately exits, and Peter’s spider-sense spikes painfully, leaving him lingering in the elevator. Anxiety is tight in his chest, and his breathes are quickening by the second.

“Peter? Ya comin’, Kid?”

Peter looks up. Tony is standing in the hallway, phone back in his pocket. He’s turned slightly, as though he’d stopped mid-walk and looked back, eyebrows furrowed at Peter.

Peter turns slightly, to look at the security guard behind him, in the corner of the elevator. He’s watching him, and the fast heartbeat is thudding away behind the man’s chest. The doors start to close, so he makes a split decision and jumps off, hearing the machine take its passenger away from their floor.

“Alright?” Tony asks softly, worried. The spider sense is still active, but it’s lessened, now.

“I think something is wrong with the elevator, Mr. Stark. Felt really anxious when it stopped.”

“The spider kind of anxious?” Tony mumbles lowly to him.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll have someone look into it. FRIDAY, have someone check the elevators, all of them,” Tony commands the empty hallway, pats Peter’s back, and continues walking down the hallway, with Peter keeping up this time.

He stands in the hallway while he waits, examining the empty lab across from him. He still feels unsettled. He tries to talk himself into calming down before his breathing picks up too much.

“Okay, back to the party,” Tony says, reappearing next to him. “Take the stairs? FRIDAY’s probably shut the elevators down.”

They head up to the living quarters, to Tony’s personal apartments. Peter has a room in the communal area, next to Vision, but Mr. Stark fixed up one of the guest rooms in his own space to house Peter, until he became an Avenger. Peter thought it was excessive—he now had several of the same gaming consoles available to him and three separate wardrobes—but was grateful to be able to stay closer to his mentor and not have to deal with the other superheroes.

It afforded him the ability to see the more domestic side of Tony Stark, too. Peter has stayed the weekend a few times now, to train and work on his suit—the best time to do it, to avoid any employees walking in to see a random kid climbing the walls and beating the shit out of a 100-pound punching bag—and the nights usually end with them watching a movie and eating take out. Peter finds it incredibly insightful to see what kind of movies Iron Man watches while eating Chinese food with a fork out of a little box.

Tonight is no different. Peter is scrolling through the various streaming services (because it’s a big deal to watch movies with Iron Man and he’s gotta pick good ones) while Tony makes coffee, because the man is addicted and will literally drink it anytime, anywhere.

“Want a movie snack?” Tony calls from the kitchen.

Peter is about to shout back a suggestion, but, thinking about it, he doesn’t feel very interested in food at the moment. Actually, his stomach is slightly unsettled. He must have eaten too much.

“No, thank you!” he replies, and continues with his search.

Tony comes back into the living room, setting his coffee down. “You don’t want a snack? When do you _not_ want a snack?”

“Right now?”

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t get it. You’re constantly eating when you shouldn’t be eating, and you don’t want food when it’s the perfect opportunity to have food? Aren’t you all about the free food?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I just ate a lot at dinner.”

“Well, you know the food is still free even when you say no,” Tony mentions, sitting back on the couch and putting his feet up on the table.

“I know, Mr. Stark.” He’ll probably be hungry again in a few hours. Midnight snacks are common for him.

They settle into a movie, laughing and discussing as it plays along. But the conversation isn’t as lively as it is usually. Peter tries, because he doesn’t want to waste a second hanging out with Mr. Stark by being quiet and broody, but he’s feeling increasingly more tired, nauseous, and anxious, thanks to his still buzzing sixth sense.

Two hours seems like it takes forever and by the end of it, Peter has mostly stopped talking and the desire to go to bed early is strong.

“You alright, Kid?” Tony asks, switching the tv off as the credits roll by and trying to see Peter in the dark where he’s curled into the corner of the couch.

“Yeah,” he replies immediately. “Just tired.”

Tony glances at his phone. “Hm. I guess it is late. Go to bed, we can work on the suit tomorrow.”

Peter doesn’t argue, and hauls himself up. “G’night, Mr. Stark,” he says, giving the man a halfhearted wave. Tony waves back and heads to the kitchen, probably intending on getting more coffee.

Going through his bedtime routine seems like a drag on his body. Just standing is exhausting. Maybe he’s getting sick? That’s what it feels like.

A good round of coughing starts up right as he’s climbing into the very expensive and very comfortable bed. He feels even worse right after, and the tickle in his chest tells him that it won’t be the only coughing he’ll do tonight. Great.

But the only cure he cares about at the moment is sleep. So, he ignores his upset stomach, the cough that could come any minute, the growing headache, and wraps himself up like a hearty portion of ground beef and cheese in a warm, soft tortilla.

…

He was… doing something. He’s sure he’d just been outside, doing something in the city, but now it’s dark and he feels awful.

He’s hot, and instinctually kicks his blanket off, and the ambient chilliness of the room strikes his sleep-heated skin. He’s more awake now, and despite the knowledge that the windows are covered by blackout curtains, his body is telling him that it’s not at all time to be awake.

He sighs, and turns over onto his back. He’s sweating, and the cold is starting to get to him, but he knows the still-warm blankets will just overheat him again. And, since he’d rushed to bed, he hadn’t gotten his bedside water.

With all the weight of interrupted sleep, Peter sits up, and steels himself to get his water and visit the bathroom as quickly as possible.

But getting past sitting up is harder than he’d thought. More awake, and less focused on the heat of his body and the chill of the room, his freshly shifted stomach makes itself known in an unpleasant way. He slumps, face scrunching in discomfort, and sits as still as possible to allow the nausea to pass.

But it doesn’t, and a few minutes later he’s feeling a little lost and helpless. He grabs his phone, stressed by the _4:15 AM_ displayed on it, and flicks through twitter to distract himself. The light sears into his eyes, into his head, adding to the pain.

It only takes a few minutes to understand that the nausea isn’t getting any better, and moving or lying back down sounds like an awful idea. As much as he wants to ignore it and go back to bed, he has a feeling the situation is only going to escalate. And he’ll need to be in the bathroom to take care of it.

The en suite bathroom at the compound is a lot bigger and nicer than the one at his apartment, and even comes equipped with heated floors and good air circulation. He flips on the lights, the heat, and considers his options for lounging in front of the toilet.

Goose bumps live on him now, and he can’t even tell if they’re related to whatever this is, or his still-buzzing spider-sense. He’s desperate for the floor to provide what little comfort it can, thankful that he has that to look forward to instead of the cold, dirty tile of his apartment’s tiny bathroom.

He used to have poor luck with being sick, back before Spider-Man. He’d get pretty ill at least once a year, and would need to miss school for a few days. Even flu shots didn’t help. He had seasonal allergies, and food allergies, and would often have a runny, clogged nose for a month at least, and head colds scattered throughout. It isn’t exactly new to Peter, to be stuck in the bathroom in the early morning hours, but it was new for Spider-Man. He hadn’t been sick _once_ in the TIME that he’d had his powers. And, because tonight is a night of firsts, he discovers that his spider-sense knows when he’s going to puke before his body does.

He’s just finished wiping his mouth and flushing everything away when he hears the bedroom door open. He sits up a little straighter—it’s a chore, all he wants to do is curl up on the now blessedly warm floor—and listens to feet pad across the carpet, eventually bringing Mr. Stark in sight.

“Hey, Kid, FRIDAY told me you were sick,” he says. He looks and sounds like he never went to bed, which is most likely the case.

“Yeah, ‘m sorry if I woke you up, ‘m fine,” Peter says to him. As much as he hates being alone when he’s sick, and wishes May were here rubbing his back and getting him a blanket, he knows that this is not at all what Mr. Stark signed up for when Peter started staying the nights at the compound.

But Tony grabs a rag and wets it in the sink, handing it to Peter and leaning his hip against the counter. Peter gratefully wipes his face with it, and set is on the floor away from him, not interesting in holding a cold, wet cloth.

“I’m guessing one of your classmates brought the flu to show-and-tell?”

Tony jab gets a small smile out of Peter. “Probably. Doubt it was the hundred-dollar dinner I just got rid of,” he whines. “I can’t believe I got to eat rich people food and I just threw it all up.”

Tony grimaces and shakes his head. “I can get you more ‘rich people food’, don’t worry.”

Peter doesn’t respond, mostly because he can feel another bout coming and desperately wants to hold off until Mr. Stark leaves. But the man just continues standing around.

“I’m—uh, I’m alright, Mr. Stark, you can go back to bed,” Peter prompts.

The man squints at him. “I know you’re fine, but no one wants to puke all by themselves. I would know, I did it a lot.”

The mention of puke doesn’t do great things with Peter’s willpower over his body. “It’s fine, Mr. Stark,” he says again, desperately hoping the man will leave. The last thing Peter wants to do is puke in front of his childhood hero.

“Yup,” he responds, getting comfortable on the floor instead of standing.

Cool. Yeah. That’s great. Mr. Stark is right, Peter hates being alone when he’s sick, but this really isn’t ideal, especially when he can feel his stomach twisting again in preparation. He swallows against it. It doesn’t help.

He picks at his nails, and digs his fingers into his legs, bunching up his pajamas. His hands are clammy. He’s so cold. His spider sense spikes again.

He leans back over the toilet, fears and worries and embarrassment gone in the face of the calamitous event. It takes a few moments where he feels nothing less than awful and his mouth is open and drooling into the fresh water below, before he can’t help but heave.

There’s a lot less, this time. He still catches sight of some partially digested steak and vegetables before he remembers himself and closes his eyes. Tears well up and slip down his nose, and he coughs and tries to suck in air between gagging.

In the midst of it, though, he can feel a hand on his back. It’s warm through his t-shirt, warmer, even, than he feels with the adrenaline and physical exertion. It rubs up and down, and then changes to circles, and it’s gentle but his body still sways with it. It’s nice. It’s comforting.

He coughs some more, and spits a few times, desperately trying to get everything out of his mouth. He fumbles with the toilet paper hanging by the toilet, tearing off a larger piece than necessary and leaving a hanging trail, but he’s able to wipe the worst of it off his mouth before flushing. Round two, finished.

His breathing is ragged, mostly because his chest is really starting to hurt, now. He no longer has the energy, or the cares, to look at all presentable to Mr. Stark, so he indulges himself and rests his head against the rim of the toilet. At least he knows it’s clean.

He hears the sink run for a few seconds, and the distinct sound of water filling up in a vessel, before Mr. Stark is sitting by him again and setting a cup on the floor nearby.

“Thanks,” he croaks, and takes a good mouthful to swish and spit in the toilet. He’ll drink water when he’s sure it’ll actually stay down.

They stay like that for ages, Peter switching between hunched over on the floor and leaning in front of his porcelain throne. By the end of it, the first, cold rays of sunrise are lighting up the window, and Peter is shivering—despite the blanket Tony had dragged in—and exhausted on the floor. Peter hasn’t had anything left to give the toilet for a while, mostly upchucking bile and the scarce sips of water he’d gotten down. But he can tell that it’s been a while since he last threw up, and hadn’t felt all that nauseous since then, so he drags himself back up to a sit.

“Think ‘m okay now,” he mumbles tiredly.

“Back to bed?” Tony asks softly.

“Couch?” Peter asks.

“In the living room?” Tony clarifies, since Peter has a couch in his own room.

Peter nods, so Tony stands up, cracking and popping the whole way, letting out a groan and a complaint about getting old. He holds out both of his hands, and Peter grabs his wrists—letting his stickiness do most of the work—and is bonelessly pulled into standing.

The morning sun keeps rising, and soon golden light covers the living room. Peter folds into the corner of the couch, burritoed and exhausted. Tony leaves the TV remote in reaching distance and heads to the kitchen.

Peter probably would have watched TV if he had even a smidgen more energy than he does, so, instead, he dazedly watches the world outside the windows greet the sunrise, and listens to the man clink around in the kitchen.

As soon as Tony enters the kitchen, he makes a b-line for the coffee machine and pulls out his phone.

_Need a little advice. Peter’s sick. Nothing serious._

He’s just about to pour his coffee when a reply buzzes through from May.

_What’s up?_

_Threw up a ton. He’s doing fine now, probably passed out on the couch. What do I do?_

_Poor thing :( Do I need to call in today?_

_No I think hell be fine._

_What do I do though._

He sips on his coffee and waits for May to reply. He definitely doesn’t want to make the woman miss a day of work when he’s supposed to be looking after the kid. He can handle a little flu. No big deal.

“FRIDAY, how do I handle the flu?” No problem with doing extra research. May’s advice will help, too.

“It would be wise to check Peter’s temperature, before he eats or drinks. Fluids should be administered to prevent dehydration, and light foods like broth or crackers can be eaten if he feels like it.”

Tony nods. Sounds easy. For him, at least. Poor kid’s just going to have to suffer through it. His phone vibrates again.

_Check his temp and let him sleep. Keep checking  
his temp though. It’s bad if it’s over 103. Put the   
tv on the history or science channel, he likes those._

Marching orders received, Tony returns with a fresh glass of water and a packet of Ritz to a passed-out kid, just as he’d expected. He turns to TV on anyways and mutes it.

He stands, watching the TV for a moment, and then looks at his ward. Peter looks fully out of it, already working on a good drool spot on his blanket. He doesn’t _look_ all that comfortable, but Tony knows that comfort is easier to come by as a 15-year-old.

“FRIDAY, give me a temp read,” he commands softly.

“Mr. Parkers body temperature is 99.3 degrees Fahrenheit,” she responds quietly after a moment

He considers the boy, and finally brings a trashcan to sit on the coffee table in front of the couch, in clear sight in case it’s needed.

“Take his temp every ten minutes and keep a log. Tell me when he wakes up,” he says, heading down to the lab. He doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable leaving Peter all alone, but knows that there’s not much more he can do besides keep him comfortable and look out for him.

He sets himself at a steady pace working on software upgrades for Peter’s suit. They’re minor, but there’s a lot of them and they all need his own personal touch, so he loses himself in the timeless task.

“Boss, Peter is awake,” FRIDAY interrupts.

He glances at his smartwatch to check the time. It’s only been a little over an hour. “Pull up the live feed from the living room, centered on Peter.”

Peter is coughing into his blanket, which is gross, but he’s not puking or crying or snotty so that’s great. Tony watches while Peter comes out of his tremendous coughing fit, and gets comfortable again in another position and goes right back to sleep.

“Alright then,” Tony says, and waves the feed away. Back to it.

The process repeats a few more times. Every time FRIDAY breaks his concentration with an update, he’ll pull up the live feed to see if the kid is ready to be awake yet. He coughs himself awake more often than not, and puts himself right back to bed.

“Peter is awake.” FRIDAY doesn’t need to be told anymore to pull up the feed, so Tony swings his focus to it without really thinking about it. Not to his surprise, Peter is coughing again, but this time, he doesn’t curl back up.

Peter secures his blanket around his shoulders and takes a sip out of the cup of water on the table, and moves the trashcan to the floor, then unmutes the TV. That’s signal enough for Tony to pause his work and head back up.

“Hey Pete,” he greets, standing behind the couch. “How’s the disease coming along?”

Pete tilts his head up to look back at him. “It’s great,” he croaks. The coughing and puking have really done a number on the poor kid’s throat.

“Any wants or needs I can fulfill? Think carefully, I don’t usually offer my minion services.”

Peter smiles. “Nah, I’m alright. Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

For the rest of the day, Tony and Peter watch random shows and ignore how often Peter coughs. Tony furtively checks Peter’s temperature log on his watch. It’s rising, only getting higher. Tony’s worry ratchets up a few levels every time he checks to see that it’s raised a few bits of a degree. He’s really worried when it gets to 100. But that isn’t an unsafe temperature to be at, so there shouldn’t be any cause for alarm.

Peter declines lunch, which Tony understands. He sips his water and ends up drinking the entire cup, which tells Tony that his stomach has probably settled enough to handle a meal.

“Wanna try for food, now?” Tony asks when dinnertime rolls around.

Peter scrunches his nose. The blanket burrito has shifted to be horizontal in the fetal position, which isn’t good for coughing but is rather great for dozing in between. “Not really.”

“Just crackers? Or soup? You can’t not eat,” Tony reasons.

Peter is quiet for a moment, and Tony lets him consider the offer. Peter knows, as much as Tony does, that he needs to eat more than a normal teenager to sustain his metabolism, and he’s already missed two meals and several snacks.

“I’ll try soup.” Those little words burst joy bubbles in Tony’s chest, and he’s very excited to have gotten through to the kid. He holds himself back from jumping off the couch to order all the soups from all the restaurants. Be reasonable.

“What kind ya want?”

“If you just have canned chicken noodle, that would be great,” Peter says, looking up at him from his pile.

Tony squints at him. “You sure? I can get any restaurant to deliver here. Any kind of soup you want. Fresh, not from a can soup.”

Peter makes a face. “No, I always eat it from a can when I’m sick. That’s just the best way, ya know?”

Tony doesn’t know. He got fresh, homemade soup when he was sick. He couldn’t imagine eating anything else. He’s not even sure he has any canned soup.

He heads to the kitchen and looks around at the many cupboards. “FRIDAY, do we have any canned soup stocked?”

“I’m afraid not, Boss.”

“Is there any in the compound at all?”

And that’s how Tony finds himself sneaking around his own darkened building, stealing food from his employees, and heating soup from a can on the stove. Which makes no sense to him, as it’s apparently already been cooked.

But his hard-fought reward of seeing Peter eat is wasted when he pukes it all up, in a strange and slightly artistic parallel to the expensive meal he sent to the ocean this morning.

The kid visibly wilts under the strain of vomiting, coughing, and lack of food, water, and sleep. Tony wonders briefly if he really should be looking after Peter. But he’s just sick and he’s a strong, immunized, healthy teenager. He most likely just needs a good night’s rest and some Tylenol. Or cough medicine. Or both. Yeah, both.

Dr. Tony administers his cure, giving Peter as many chemicals as he’s brave enough to give, and leads him to bed. He leaves a trashcan and water next to the bed, and the old packet of _Ritz_ , just on the off-chance the boy woke up with a hankering for crackers in the middle of the night, and leaves—just as exhausted as Peter looked—with the repeated command to wake him up if Peter woke up.

Which he ends up regretting almost immediately, when he’s woken every 20 minutes when Peter coughs himself awake, only to go right back to sleep. He can’t do the sleep deprivation thing like he used to, but he forces himself through the experience with the excuse that it’s just for tonight. He can sleep easier tomorrow, probably.

An alarm jolts him awake. It’s not an Avenger’s emergency alarm, despite what his adrenaline rush says, and he’s able to register that it’s actually just his regular wake-up alarm.

“What time‘s it?” he asks FRIDAY, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Sir, it is 3:12 AM. Peter’s body temperature is reaching unsafe levels.”

He freezes, and the adrenaline that had been leaking out of him is back. “What? What is it?”

“It is currently 103.3 degrees Fahrenheit and rising.”

“Shit,” he hisses, jumping out of bed, and running with speed he shouldn’t have to the door, and down the hall. He bursts into Peter’s room with enough ferocity that it should have normally waken him, but there’s absolutely no movement from the dark bundle in bed.

“Lights.” He blinks against the brightness, pulling the blankets away from Peter. He’s sweaty and doesn’t smell all that fresh, and he’s despairingly pale. Grey, even.

“Fuck,” he swears again. He can’t handle this. This is so far out of his comfort zone, it isn’t even funny. The puking was one thing, the coughing, too. He didn’t even mind taking care of him. It was almost too easy.

“Fuck, call the doctors, call Cho. Anyone that can come. Whoever’s closest. I need someone here,” he commands his AI. He climbs into the bed kneeling next to the unconscious boy.

“Peter? Pete, wake up for me, Buddy,” he calls, hearing his voice come out a lot more frantic than he meant it to. “Peter, Peter, c’mon Kid.” He shakes the boy’s shoulder, trying not to be too rough, but desperately wanting him awake. Peter flops bonelessly, not even a hint of consciousness.

“Sir? I have Drs. Sweeney, Barr, and Crawford on their way now.”

Tony lets out a breath of relief. But they’ll want him in the Med Bay, most likely. He could save them some time and transport Peter himself.

“I need to get him upstairs, FRI.”

“All elevators are big enough to fit emergency stretchers in. They are in the emergency section of the Med Bay.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s easy,” he starts to climb off the bed, but stops. “Will he be okay if I leave him?”

“Yes. I will continue to monitor him.”

He runs for the elevator. “Need it fast,” he demands, and the elevator immediately shuts the door and speeds faster than normal up to the top floor of the compound. The machine grinds to a halt and the doors are opening before he’s even on the correct floor.

The Bay is still well lit, and he runs, following the signs to get to the small emergency room. There are basic ambulance stretchers scattered along the walls, and he grabs onto the first one he sees and clumsily runs it to the elevator.

He makes it back to Peter’s room with the stretcher in about the same amount of time, surprisingly. Peter hasn’t moved.

“Okay, time to pick up the 150-pound ball of muscle,” Tony mutters to himself, steeling his body. This is gonna hurt.

Good thing Peter won’t remember being dragged across his bed, or almost dropped on the ground.

Tony sets a steady pace wheeling the boy back up to the Med Bay. He stands awkwardly in the large, empty room, waiting for the doctors to arrive and unsure what exactly he should do next.

Peter coughs, pulling Tony’s attention to him. “Hey, Kid, c’mon, wake up for me,” he pleads. But Peter just coughs pitifully again, and never opens his eyes.

“Okay. Just the flu. You’re probably just dehydrated, haven’t eaten enough, that’s all.” He’s angry, and ashamed, that he couldn’t manage to take care of one sick kid with a radioactive immune system. How could he have let it get this far? He’d been operating under the assumption that the most he would need to do is feed him, water him, and entertain him.

But he hadn’t done most of those things, had he? And he’d excused it, all day long, because he knew he wouldn’t want to ingest anything if he was nauseated.

The elevator dings, and opens, revealing doctor Sweeney, who rushes up to him. Tony lets go of Peter’s hand, which he didn’t realize he’d been holding until now.

“What is his current temperature?” she asks, pulling on her stethoscope and leaning down to listen to Peter’s breathing.

“103.7,” FRIDAY answers.

“He didn’t eat all day, and he didn’t drink much. He has a fast metabolism,” he says, even though she knows already. All the doctors are up to date with Peter.

She jogs off, and Tony goes back to staring at his mentee in fear. God, what is he going to tell May? What if Peter dies because of his neglect?

He grinds his teeth and halts the thought. No, he can’t just die from the flu. He’s going to get the best medical treatment and he’ll be perfectly fine in a few days.

The elevator slides open again, and Dr. Crawford walks up. “Good morning Mr. Stark,” he greets, sliding past him and looking over his patient. “What’s his temperature at now?”

“103.7,” FRIDAY answers again. “Doctor Sweeney is currently gathering supplies.

“Ah, I’ll go help her then,” he says, leaving with a kind smile directed to Tony.

Tony shakes his head, unreasonably annoyed at them. And it doesn’t make it any better when the final doctor arrives, asks the same questions, and heads to the supply room as well. Good to know his life is just a sitcom, now.

The doctors come back with a cart full of things. “We’re going to transfer him to a more comfortable bed before we start hooking him up to anything,” Crawford informs him. He follows them back to a different section of the Bay, where less temporary residents stay. They professionally lift him onto the hospital bed, and start poking and prodding and sticking things to him.

“BP 70 over 50, ox is low. Temp 103.8,” Dr. Barr reads off to the other two, once the information is displayed on the screen.

“Peter, can you wake up for me, please? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” Dr. Sweeney instructs in a very distinct Doctor Voice, holding Peter’s hand while he does it.

“No response,” she states after a few seconds, and tests Peter’s pupils. “Pupil reaction delayed.”

“His blood sugar is at 32,” Dr. Crawford pipes in, concerned. “Let’s start with that, and fluids.”

They circle the bed again, injecting things into his kid and hanging a bag of clear fluid to drain into his veins. He stands to the back of the small room, watching them throw medicine at Peter, discuss the amounts they should give, look over a folder and cross out dosages and meds that won’t work. He looks on in morbid fascination as they draw blood, and strap an oxygen mask to his face. They read off numbers, and Tony has the wherewithal to hear that some of it is getting better.

Eventually, the doctors leave, promising that they will be keeping a close eye on their patient and test him later, when he’s more stable. Tony sits in the plush armchair next to the bed, listening to the beeping of the heart monitor. 5:00 AM drifts by.

He doesn’t dare look to closely at Peter, who is deathly pale and still. He knows the image of him in the bed will haunt him forever.

Doctor Crawford returns an hour later. “Hello, Mr. Stark. I thought we could discuss the blood work.”

He nods, thankful for a distraction and the opportunity to move forward with Peter’s illness. The doctor flips through her folder, finding the right page.

“I’ve tested for the full range of common viruses, and did not find anything. I also tested for every infection that I can through blood work, and that was also negative,” he closes his folder and looks at him in serious concern. “We are not currently sure what the problem is, and wanted to see if he might have come into contact with something.”

He frowns. “I don’t know. I’ll look.”

He nods slowly at him and studies the monitor for a second. “His blood sugar is back up to a reasonable level. His oxygen is still a little low, so we will leave the mask for now. Unfortunately, I think it would be best to install a catheter, in case he is unable to go to the restroom, and so that we can monitor his kidney functions.”

He messes with Peter’s equipment for a time, and Tony forces himself out of the room for coffee while she puts in the catheter. Instead of returning to his mysteriously sick mentee, who might possibly be dying from Very Much Not the Flu, he heads to his workshop.

It’s a safe place for him, always has been. Any workshop of his provides all the necessary tools to venting frustrations, anxieties, depression. He can work all day and all night and lock the doors to anyone who might tell him differently. He can shut out his life, and set his hands to work doing the thing he loves most.

This time, while the space is comforting, he does not shut himself away. He sips his coffee and pulls up the Baby Monitor footage from Peter’s spider suit, and looks through it while FRIDAY also combs the hours of events for anything that might have caused Peter to be sick. She’s able to look through it three times before he’s finished, but as much as she is one of his best creations, he still doesn’t trust her enough to fully and completely take the lead on this. He has to be thorough

But they find nothing, and he’s forced to sit in contemplative silence as the last of the footage sits paused in front of him, a view of Peter’s bedroom, as he’d returned home that Friday, in between school and having dinner with him.

He slumps in his chair, holding his chin in his hand. He needs to shave. He’s sure he looks like shit right now, on little sleep and a whole lot of stress. Par for the course for a superhero. His job is to make sure everyone else can sleep soundly at night, not him.

He has one more possible lead, before he’s forced to look through street cams and check the air in Peter’s apartment. He remembers, now, distinctly, that Peter had raised an alarm about the elevator the other night. Had said his Spidey-sense was going off, which is a sure indicator that there was something drastically wrong with the situation. He’d assumed it was just an issue with the elevators and, stupidly, he hadn’t followed up on the concern after FRIDAY had given the elevators the all clear.

So, he follows himself and his ward through the footage on Friday, when they’d walked through the lobby and rode up the elevator. There are two other men in it with them, that he didn’t remember until now.

“FRI, tell me who they are,” he commands, continuing to watch the footage. Both men seem fine; it’s Peter, actually, who is acting shifty. He looks back at them twice, and doesn’t get off the elevator immediately. He’d known something was up, this incident had to be a major clue.

“The one on the left is Dale Stephens, a security guard, level 3 clearance, employed for 4 months today. The one on the right is Jack Gomez, a technician, specializing in Aerotech, employed for 3 years today,” FRIDAY gives him.

“And if I may.” She continues. Another hologram window pops up, showing the same footage. It’s slowed tremendously, and is zoomed in on the security guard. “Mr. Stephens’ right hand is not in view of the camera, but the arm does not appear fully relaxed in this moment. It seems to move, for about two point 6 seconds. While slightly unreliable, his facial expression and body language also expresses dishonesty and nervousness. I believe he has deliberately turned his right side out of view of the camera,” FRIDAY reports, playing the video as she explains. She rewinds it, and speeds it up very slightly. “I can also see that he begins holding his breath here,” and she marks a spot on the footage timeline, where Tony was just beginning to step off the elevator. “And continues breathing normally here,” she marks another spot, where the elevator doors have shut and the machine is starting to move.

It’s another clue, a lead, a theory; it’s not hard evidence that the man did something wrong. “Okay, if he did it, I’m assuming it’s some sort of poison or chemical warfare or some shit. Why the fuck would he do it when he’s clearly going to get the full effects?”

“I’ve found updated medical files showing that he is currently in the ICU at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center with similar symptoms to Mr. Parker. He checked himself in Friday evening at 7:13 PM with concerns that he had come into contact with the chemical agent Ricin.”

Tony’s face contorts, standing up from his stool. “Jesus Christ.”

“Indeed.”

He rushes to the Med Bay, suddenly intensely scared that maybe he’s too late. Ricin is bad, really really bad. It’s poison, a weapon, and he doesn’t even have any idea why this random security guard would use it, let alone where he got it or who his target actually was. It’s hard to imagine anyone would want to kill Peter—he was _just Peter_ why would anyone do that?!—but there is absolutely no telling. Tony Stark attracts the worst—and the best—people.

He runs to Peter’s room first. Logic says he should tell the doctors as soon as humanly possible, but he _needs_ to make sure he isn’t too late.

Peter is still lying in the bed, beeping away. He’s not okay, but he will be.

The doctors are spread around a paper-covered table behind the nurse’s station. They look up in surprise when he skids to a halt in the doorway.

“It’s ricin, I think it’s ricin,” he all but shouts.

Dr. Sweeney stands with urgency, the other two are confused and concerned. “Mr. Stark?” she asks.

“I think it might be ricin poisoning,” he says again. They have to get this. They have to understand and _do_ something _right now_. His fucking kid’s been poisoned.

“Do you know how it got into his system?”

“N-no no I don’t—”

“Did he inhale it? Ingest it? Did he handle it somehow?”

He thinks back to the footage. Peter never came into contact with the man, so that rules that out. Is there even a possibility that he ate it, somehow? “He—I don’t know, exactly. He didn’t touch it, I don’t think,” Tony admits, deflating. God, why is this all happening so fast? How could he not _know_ when his kid had been poisoned?

The other doctors are listening intently, but Dr. Sweeney continues to take control of the situation. “Okay, Mr. Stark, that’s okay. We will give him treatment for everything, we can do that.” She’s nodding carefully and looking him in the eyes like he’s an animal that needs to be calmed.

“There isn’t an antidote for Ricin poisoning, but with the correct care and preventative steps, he can recover,” she says slowly, calmly.

That sounded like bad news with a little bit of good news at the end to soften the blow. His world feels like its crashing down around him. When he learned the truth about Stane, when Pepper fell out of his hands, when Rhodey was sent plummeting to the earth. His world has ended so many times before, yet it keeps turning—and crumbling again and again.

“He’s going to be okay, Mr. Stark. He’s a very healthy boy and his enhancement will help. We’ll go take care of him now.” She looks at him for another moment before turning to her colleagues and waving them into Peter’s room.

He doesn’t watch them give Peter a complete scrub-down, or change his entire bed, or his clothes, or the equipment they used. He sits in the hall and listens to them flush his empty stomach, pump more fluids into his veins, and watches them wheel him off to do scans. They check his blood again, his urine, his eyes, his mouth, his fingers and toes. They tell him that the clothes he’d been wearing when he came into contact with the poison and anything he’d touched after would need to be destroyed. So, in other words, most of the kid’s room.

Sunday morning coasts by him, until it is Sunday afternoon. He’s exhausted, hasn’t even considered sleeping, yet. He’s too busy waiting. He desperately needs to call May, to inform her of what had happened while her nephew was in his care. But he wants to give her good news, that _her_ kid is going to make it out of this alive and healthy.

“Mm.” The sound from the bed scares him out of his sleep deprived contemplation. He finds himself standing, leaning over the bed, without consciously deciding to do so.

“Kid? Pete? Hey, Buddy, can you hear me?” he cajoles.

“Mm.” The sound is gravely and barely audible, but it’s there, and it comes with Peter’s eyes scrunching and his head turning.

“Hey, that’s good, c’mon, you’re almost there,” Tony encourages, beyond excited to see him waking up. No matter the docs’ hopeful diagnoses, he wouldn’t believe Peter is okay until he sees it with his own eyes.

“Wha—” Peter halfway says, before coughing a pitiful cough and squinting his eyes open.

“Hey, hi, you’re alright,” Tony greets, backout out of his space and letting him see his surroundings. But Peter just finds him as soon as he can.

“Mis’r S’ark?” Peter croaks.

“Yup, hi,” Tony gives him a halfwave, smiling.

“Wha’s happenin’?” Peter asks blearily. He sounds tired, but the more minutes that pass, the more awake he sounds.

“You just got a little sick, no big deal. You’re gonna be fine.”

“’m… in the hospital?”

“Yup, Avenger’s Compound.”

“Oh. ‘m sorry.”

Tony is taken aback. “What the fuck are you sorry for? Sorry, frick, whatever, that’s a real reason to be sorry,” he babbles.

“I—I just, like, I’m all sick and we were supposed to train but now we’re in the hospital…” he mumbles.

“Kid, it’s fine. You couldn’t help it.” That’s for sure.

“I didn’t even know I could get sick.”

“It’s not your fault, Pete.”

“Yeah, well…” And that sounds like someone who doesn’t want to argue and absolutely doesn’t believe he’s wrong. Tony almost tells him, about the man and the poison, how it was an attack meant for _him_ and Peter was the one that took the brunt of it, but he’s sure Peter would turn that around somehow and feel bad for it.

“You can stay next weekend,” Tony says, instead. “If you’re feeling better.”

“I can?” Peter is excited, and trying to hide it. Or maybe he’s just tired, still. “I mean, it’s okay if you’re busy…”

“No, Kid, not too busy for you.”

Peter looks at him, blinks, speechless. They don’t break eye contact for what feels like a hearty few minutes.

“I should—” Tony looks at the door and nods his head towards it. “I need to call your aunt and let her know about everything.”

“Oh, right, yeah yeah yeah, go ahead Mr. Stark,” Peter is nodding frantically, and twisting his blanket in his hands.

“I’ll be back in a bit. Go back to sleep if you want.” _I’ll take care of everything_.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter smiles at him. _I know_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: spends an entire 8 hour period researching poisons  
> My FBI agent: sighs and adds me to a new list


End file.
